Chapter 2 Surprise
Janice
Blackstone Ventures HQ, San Francisco. 1045 hours.
I close the bathroom door behind me and stare at the pregnancy test in my hand.
Two lines.
I knew. Or at least I suspected.
My period’s late. I’ve been more tired than I should be, my breasts have been tender, and this morning the smell of Steve’s coffee turned my stomach badly enough that I abandoned mine after one sip.
Any one of those could mean nothing.
Together, they sent me into Baby Bump Nursery while Steve was getting our coffees from the café this morning. I grabbed three pregnancy tests, buried them beneath a couple of things we didn’t need and paid before he came looking for me.
Three tests. Six pink lines.
Apparently, when the patient is me, one opinion isn’t enough.
I’m pregnant.
I sit on the closed toilet lid because my legs have suddenly decided standing is ambitious.
A laugh slips out before I can stop it, quiet and slightly shaky.
“Holy shit.”
Steve and I are having a baby.
The thought sends happiness rushing through me so quickly my eyes fill.
A baby.
Ours.
I press my fingers to my lips and stare at the test again as though the result might change while I’m looking at it.
We’ve talked about children. Of course we have. We’re married, we love each other, and neither of us has ever pretended HAVEN is the only future we want.
I’ve imagined Steve as a father more times than I’ve admitted to him.
He’s going to lose his mind.
The thought makes me laugh again.
Then my gaze catches on the bathroom door.
Beyond it, HAVEN is launching a mission to find a woman who may be carrying evidence someone murdered a United States senator to suppress.
The happiness doesn’t disappear.
It acquires company.
I know what our work costs.
I’ve treated gunshot wounds in safe houses. Stitched people under circumstances no medical textbook bothered preparing me for. I’ve been hunted, threatened and injured. I’ve watched Steve walk into situations where one mistake could mean he doesn’t walk back out.
Until today, those risks belonged to us. Now every decision I make affects someone who doesn’t get a vote.
My hand settles over my abdomen before I think about doing it.
There’s nothing to feel. At this stage, the pregnancy is barely established, a microscopic beginning hidden inside me while the rest of my life continues exactly as it did an hour ago.
Except it doesn’t.
I’m still Janice Hollands.
Still a nurse practitioner.
Still part of HAVEN.
Still the woman who’ll walk into danger when someone needs help.
But I can’t pretend this changes nothing.
A knock sounds against the door.
“Jan?”
Steve.
Naturally.
I glance at the test in my hand.
“Yes?”
“You all right?”
His voice has that edge it gets when he’s trying very hard not to sound worried.
He noticed upstairs. I knew he would.
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
I smile despite myself.
“No.”
Silence.
Then, “Want me to come in?”
God, I love him.
I look at the two pink lines again.
I could open the door.
I could tell him now and watch his entire world change in a Blackstone Ventures bathroom while half of HAVEN waits upstairs for us to find Charity Washington.
Absolutely not.
“Give me five minutes, love.”
“You’ve got five.”
I hear him move away.
I tuck the test carefully into its wrapper and put it inside my bag.
Tonight. I’ll tell him tonight, when we’re alone and I can watch his face. Then we’ll work out what comes next.
Because there are two of us making these decisions now.
Three, technically.
Bloody hell.
I’m pregnant.
***
Blackstone Ventures HQ, San Francisco. 1055 hours.
I wash my hands, check my face in the mirror and head back upstairs with a pregnancy test hidden in my bag and absolutely no idea what I’m going to do about it.
Well, that isn’t entirely true.
I know what I’m going to do about the baby. Love it. Protect it. Tell Steve tonight and probably spend the next several months stopping him from wrapping me in bubble wrap.
It’s HAVEN I don’t know what to do about.
By the time I walk back into the conference room, the search for Charity Washington has accelerated. Felicity has maps of Washington, DC, on one screen, Verity is working through Senator Davis Ellison’s contacts, and Victor is briefing Antoine from a secure connection.
I take my seat beside Steve. His eyes immediately search my face.
“Better?”
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he lets it go.
I open my tablet and force myself back into the operation.
Charity is somewhere in Washington, DC with Ellison’s files, and if she disappeared deliberately, she had a reason. We need to find her before whoever frightened her does.
Usually, this is the point where I’d be thinking ahead to what happens when we reach her.
Medical kit. Extraction route. Safe location. Injuries we might encounter. Whether I need to travel with the team.
My brain starts building the list automatically. Then I remember the two pink lines.
I can’t keep doing field work the way I have been.
The realization hurts more than I want it to.
I love being out there with Steve. I love knowing that when we reach someone who’s injured, frightened or barely holding on, I can help. HAVEN needs medics in the field, and I’ve never wanted to be the person waiting somewhere safe while everyone else takes the risks.
Now I have to think differently.
Pregnancy doesn’t make me incapable of doing my job. It doesn’t mean I need to sit at home for nine months while Steve and everyone else fight without me.
But there’s a difference between refusing to be treated as fragile and pretending nothing has changed.
Gunfire doesn’t care that I’m pregnant. Neither does a car crash, a fall, an explosion or one of Legacy’s mercenaries.
My hand almost moves toward my stomach before I stop it.
There has to be somewhere between walking away from HAVEN and walking into every dangerous situation because that’s what I’ve always done.
Strategic command. Medical planning. Triage coordination from secure locations. Safe houses, logistics, intelligence, communications. Training the newer medical personnel we’ve started bringing into HAVEN instead of insisting I need to be everywhere myself.
The options are there.
Strategic command doesn’t mean I have to decide today what I’ll never do again.
“Janice?”
I look up.
Victor is watching me.
“Sorry. What?”
“Once we locate Charity, I want medical support ready wherever Antoine takes her.”
“I’ll handle it.”
The answer comes without hesitation. Because I can.
I bring up our East Coast medical contacts and start working through options near Washington, checking who can move quickly without asking questions we don’t want answered.
This is still my job. For today, I can do it from here.
Beside me, Steve reaches beneath the table and takes my hand.
I squeeze his fingers.
Tonight I’ll tell him. Then we’ll decide together how this changes us.
Charity Washington needs us now.
And I’m not going anywhere.
***
Blackstone Ventures HQ, San Francisco. 1115 hours.
The first wave of nausea hits while Verity is walking us through Senator Davis Ellison’s final week.
I reach for my water and take a slow sip.
Nobody notices. Except Steve, because he always does.
His eyes flick toward me before returning to the screen, and I make a point of opening another file on my tablet.
I’m fine. Mostly.
Verity has built a timeline from Ellison’s public schedule, committee work and the records Charity accessed after he collapsed. G is leading the digital search for Charity, with Felicity working alongside him, both careful not to leave a trail that might alert anyone else looking for her.
“We need to know what changed,” I say.
Shane looks across at me. “With Ellison?”
“In the last few days. He’d been looking at Cunningham-linked lobbying groups for at least two months. If someone decided he suddenly needed to die, what happened recently?”
Verity nods and starts narrowing the timeline.
I can still ask questions, find the gaps and work out what doesn’t fit.
My stomach rolls again. I breathe through it and keep reading.
Ellison had committee meetings, constituent appointments, a private dinner, two calls with staff while traveling and several blocks in his schedule marked simply as research.
Nothing jumps out. Then I notice Charity’s name.
“She was with him late yesterday.”
Verity checks. “Until nearly nine.”
“Doing what?”
“Private briefing session in his office. Just Ellison and Charity according to the calendar.”
Steve leans forward. “About Cunningham?”
“We don’t know.”
I enlarge the entry. “But less than ten hours later Ellison collapses, and thirty-two minutes after that Charity accesses his secure files.”
The sequence bothers me.
Maybe Ellison told Charity something during that meeting.
Maybe he gave her instructions.
Maybe whatever they uncovered frightened her enough that when he collapsed the next morning, she understood exactly what had happened.
Or we could be looking at this backward.
“What if Charity isn’t running from Cunningham?”
Steve turns toward me.
“What if she’s working for them?”
That gets everyone’s attention.
I tap Charity’s name on the timeline. “She had access to Ellison, his schedule, his private research and his secure files. If Cunningham wanted someone inside his office keeping track of what he was uncovering, a trusted senior aide would be perfectly placed.”
“And once Ellison was dead, she took the evidence,” Shane says.
“Maybe to protect it,” I say. “Maybe to destroy it. Right now, we don’t know which.”
Victor nods. “So, we find her without assuming she’s a victim.”
“Exactly.”
Until we know why Charity Washington ran, we treat her as both a potential target and a potential threat.
“We need Charity’s movements after she left Ellison last night,” I say. “And his. If either of them met someone, made a call or accessed something outside their normal routine, it might tell us what changed.”
G and Felicity start tracing Charity’s movements after she left Ellison the night before, while Verity and Shane dig into Ellison’s own calls, meetings and access logs.
Victor gives me a brief nod. “Find out what changed between that briefing and his collapse.”
I sit back and take another sip of water. The nausea is already easing, but my thoughts keep circling back to the field.
I keep thinking about field kits and extraction routes, and all the times I’ve climbed into vehicles with Steve without knowing what we’d find at the other end.
I don’t have to decide never today. I only have to decide what makes sense now.
Charity doesn’t need me carrying a medical bag through Washington, DC.
She needs someone making sure Antoine has somewhere secure to take her. She needs medical support waiting if she’s hurt. She needs people looking at the problem from here while others handle what happens on the ground.